


Homeward

by lonelywalker



Category: Missing (TV 2012)
Genre: Gen, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martin takes 8-year-old Michael home to the US after his father dies.</p>
<p>Spoilers for the entire series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homeward

One day in August 2001, a man and a boy get on a plane.

It's a dreary day in Vienna despite the summer season, and the clerk at the check-in desk for Austrian Airlines can see a mass of umbrellas through the rain-streaked glass doors. She's been on duty for two hours, and still hasn't decided whether it would be better to be outside in the wet, or here, dealing with soaked and grumpy passengers.

She smiles, though, as the next two come up to the desk: a middle-aged man carrying a briefcase, with a child's backpack slung over his shoulder. The boy it must belong to is sullenly staring at the floor, a soccer ball wedged under his other arm. She checks the names on the booking information: Martin Newman and Michael Winstone. American nationals. There are enough families with two or three surnames among them not to worry her, but there's something that seems familiar about the names…

"Your son?" she asks with a smile, doing her best to seem casual as she taps through menu screen after screen.

"Godson," Mr. Newman says, his smile answering hers. Far too many people try to play the niceness game with her, angling for better seats (and sometimes her phone number), but she might actually believe this one. "We're heading home to see his mom. Right, Michael?"

Michael scrunches up his face and slouches against the counter, disappearing from her view.

"Sorry," his godfather says. "He's upset. Death in the family."

"Oh, I'm sorry. No checked baggage?"

"No… Traveling light."

She's almost done, tickets being printed off, when the niggling thought in the back of her head resolves itself into a clear memory: a news report from the day before yesterday, the American tourist shockingly killed by a car bomb outside his hotel right here in Vienna. _Winstone_.

She leans over the desk to hand the tickets down to the boy. "Have a good flight, Michael!" she says with her most winning smile.

He takes them, looking at the numbers studiously, and then looks back up. "Danke," he says. There's no smile, but it's a start.

They'd been booked to travel business. She upgrades them to first class as they're walking away. It's a quiet flight, and she doubts the boy will cause any trouble.

***

Michael likes planes.

He's always been traveling since as far back as he can remember - a family vacation in Paris, his Dad taking him to a soccer game in England or Italy, a few nights housesitting for Uncle Martin in Berlin... 

There's something comforting about the way it never seems to change. No matter where they're going, he always goes through the routine of packing his bag (only one, no checked baggage to hold them up), and then there's the mass of people, the check-in, looking at departure times, finding the gate...

This time around, there's nothing comforting about it at all. Instead of going somewhere, he's leaving, and it's not like the day he and his parents had moved back to the US, even though he'd been miserable about leaving his friends and his school in Prague… This time he's leaving _Dad_ behind, somewhere cold and scary where Uncle Martin won't let him go (and he'd fought and cried and begged).

He sits on the high stool at the café and numbly pokes at his mug of hot chocolate. It has whipped cream on top, and marshmallows somewhere underneath that. He knows he _should_ like it, but there's a horrible aching pit in his stomach.

"Hey…" Martin reaches over to squeeze his hand. "How about just a sip? It's going to be a long flight, and you know what airplane food's like."

"I'm not hungry." Yesterday and the day before he'd wanted to be angry, to hit out at anything and everything he could – and that had mostly meant his uncle. Today, though, he just wishes he was in bed. Somewhere he could lock the door and no one would ever make him eat or take him away from Dad.

Martin uses the long spoon to scoop up a blob of cream. "How about this? Promise you'll feel better when you start."

He wants to hit it away like he's a little baby. But he's _not_ , so he thumps his fist on the table instead and some of Martin's coffee spills out over the top of his mug. "Sorry," he says instantly, because Mom and Dad would expect it. Because he knows it's not polite.

Martin mops it up with a napkin. "It's all right. Maybe if I'd been drinking it instead of bugging you it wouldn't have happened." He looks at the spoon in his hand, shrugs, and eats the cream himself. "That is _really_ good. Can I have a marshmallow too? Actually, if you're not drinking that, how about we swap?"

"Uh uh." Michael guards his mug with an arm, suddenly defensive. "Don't like coffee."

"You don't have to drink it. But if you're not drinking your hot chocolate I might as well have it, right?"

Michael looks at him, at the wide, innocent eyes. This all sounds very familiar. "Okay, okay…" He picks up the mug and drinks the now-lukewarm liquid, cream daubing his nose. It's not too bad, and that feeling he had, the one that made him think he'd be sick if he drank _anything_ , seems to be going away. He scoops a marshmallow out and offers it to Martin. "Here."

Martin eats it right off the spoon. "Thanks, kiddo. Hey, want to get a book for the plane? I hear _Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen_ is much scarier in German."

***

They get a few anxious glances from other passengers traveling with their laptops or personal flight pillows, but once Michael's safely stashed his bag and soccer ball under the seat in front of him he stares out the window and barely says a word.

Martin's been at his side almost constantly ever since the explosion. Finding him in tears amid a huddle of paramedics and Austrian police officers, Martin had taken him up in his arms as if he were still a tiny child, and fought off all other authorities with his very best torrent of indignant German legalese. Even so, the rest of the day had been split between police reports and the embassy's concerns, trying to shield Michael from questions while keeping in touch with a frantic Becca back in the States.

He'd reluctantly agreed with Asimoff that Paul had to be killed, but not like this, and certainly not in front of Michael. And Asimoff had sworn blind over the phone that this car bomb had been nothing to do with him. "A simple coincidence," he'd said.

Coincidences simply can't be believed in this business, but there had been no time to investigate. The rest of his contacts watch the news. They monitor the intelligence agency feeds. Let them take care of it. Martin has his godson to look after.

"Is your dad dead too?" Michael asks quietly when they're in the air. There are movie options, but the boy's just been watching clouds go by, listening to the hum of the engine. 

Martin carefully folds up his newspaper. "Yes he is."

"What happened?"

"He was sick for a long time. In the end he just went to sleep." 

Michael bites his lip, staring at the carpeted floor, looking for all the world exactly the way his mother does when she is really, truly determined not to cry. "Do you think Dad felt anything? I mean, the fire…"

Usually, he knows, there are supposed to be informative but reassuring answers to these questions, ensuring that the child isn't left to struggle with either confusion or nightmares. But Martin's never really had a firm grounding in relating to Michael as anything other than a sort of junior agent. 

"I don't think he felt anything at all," he says, putting an arm around Michael's shoulders.

Michael looks up at him: hopeful, innocent, sincere. “Do you think that’s better?” 

Hesitation would kill him. "I know that if your dad could've spent even one more moment with you and your mom, he would've, even if it hurt. He was a good man, Michael, and a better father. I know you’re going to grow up to be just like him."

Wrong move. The boy’s face falls. “I just… Uncle Martin? I could _feel_ the heat on my face… I can still feel it…”

Martin pushes up the armrest and tugs Michael into his arms. “Listen to me,” he says. “I will never let anything happen to you. Never.”

Michael sniffles and wraps his arms tight around Martin’s neck.

***

She’s been at the airport for hours. Where else would she be? There’s nothing at home but reminders of Paul, and the only reminder she wants is her little boy safely in her arms. 

It’s August, high season for vacationers, and she waits in Arrivals with an eye on the monitors, watching stream after stream of weary but jubilant families reunited. Plane after plane comes, some after delays. She could have brought a book, or gone off to get a coffee and a bite to eat. All her intelligence training tells her that standing in one place for so long is _wrong_. She’s drawing attention to herself. She’s behaving like… like a recently widowed woman who can barely keep tears from her eyes. 

The thought almost makes her chuckle. _What a brilliant disguise, Becca!_ But then her hands are shaking, and she stuffs them in her pockets.

Martin had called from Vienna, telling her the flight numbers, the exact times, the weather forecast. He understands how much she takes comfort in being briefed thoroughly, as though this were just another mission. She doesn’t know how she’d do this without him. She’d never have been able to make it as a spy without his training, would never have been able to get over her anxieties and marry Paul, have Michael… Paul was his friend too, almost like his son. He must be tearing up inside. But he’s been an absolute rock, for her and for Michael too.

Just as much as she wants to hold Michael and tell him everything will be all right, she wants Martin to do the same for her.

Their flight creeps up the order on the monitor. Delayed by four minutes, then by twelve, then on time again. Then, finally, landed. She imagines them getting off the plane, going through passport control. No checked luggage of course. She tries to think through every step, measuring her breaths, not panicking when they’re not here instantly…

And then, here they are. Her little boy hurrying to her, burying his face in her chest. It takes her a long, long moment to remember Martin, the man who’s been like a father to her over the past ten years. She wants to hug him too, but Michael’s insistent grip on her hand holds her back. She needs to be strong for him now. She needs to keep them both safe, whatever it takes.

“Oh, is that the ball you were telling me about?” she asks, and tries a smile. It almost seems real. “Who signed it? Patrick Vieira?”

A tiny, exasperated sigh as Michael grabs the ball from his godfather. “No, mom… I _told_ you! Zidane!”

She lets him explain the precise significance of this apparently ordinary ball in great, painstaking detail as he leads them back to the car, with all the reasons why the three of them are here now lost in a history of the French national soccer team. 

Things will never be the way they were before. She’ll have to change jobs, settle down, be boring and sedate and _safe_ for once in her life. It’ll be tough. But she’s got Michael, and she’s got Martin, and they’re a constant reassurance that, whatever happens, she still has a family.

She reaches over and gives Martin’s hand a squeeze, mussing Michael’s hair when he pauses for breath by the elevators. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
